Saturday, 20th January, 2018

Thanks, Scrivener of Doom! As you can see, the time between updates can stretch out fairly long, depending upon how much time passes between gaming sessions. (In theory, we try to play every other Saturday; in practice, it seldom turns out that way.)
And if you're up for another Story Hour or two, you can check out "The Adventures of Baabby and Sam" and "The Durnhill Conscripts." Both are DMed by my son Logan, but that just means I get to be a player for a change. The first one's based on the Skylanders console games (and is already complete) but the second is straight D&D 3.5 with the same group of players as "Wing Three" and "The Kordovian Adventurers Guild" with the exception of Jacob (who's away at college on the Wednesday nights we play.)
Anyway, thanks for the kind words! Our next session in this campaign is on the 26th, so expect a write-up in the week that follows. (The PCs will be returning to Kozakura to rescue that second merchant vessel.)
Johnathan

Saturday, 22nd April, 2017

...allenge resolution frameworks. If I'm lucky, though, then I'm wrong about this! (I know darkbard is also running 4e Dark Sun. Any thoughts on this particular issue?)
Unfortunately, my Dark Sun 4E campaign is still in its nascent stages, having only engaged in PC creation; some discussions about PC backstory, "kickers," and beliefs/goals; and my framing, as the DM, of the initial scene. So I have nothing to add here from praxis ... yet. I hope to have more to contribute to this sooner than later, but, with my work as an academic and this being the last stretch of the semester, real life continues to intervene.
That said, I am curious as to why you think the particularities of the fiction/mechanics of a Dark Sun game might present difficulties to seamless integration in the fashion you suggest. (Though I also wonder if this is the thread for such a discussion. I would very much like to have such a conversation but perhaps as its own thread?)
EDIT: Unless I'm seriously mistaken, Scrivener of Doom is also DMing a new 4E Dark Sun game and might have interest in such a discussion.

Thursday, 16th February, 2017

Glad you gained something from it Scrivener of Doom! Yep, mind-mapping is a neat way to get your ideas down.
Step 3: Quests & Character Hooks
What good is a dungeon/adventure is the players don't have a reason to care about it, a reason to step through that archway? Rather than do this later, I like to bear it in mind right from the start, because I think it's that important. While we as DMs do want to create a logical, well-conceived, believable setting, we don't want to do that at the expense of playability.
First, the Quest. My rule-of-thumb is to come up with more than one possible Quests; for a short adventure or side trek you can usually get away with one, but things become much more interesting when 2 or 3 quests can interact. In this case, I've outlined notes on 3 possible main quests (any, all, or none of which a DM might use); in my campaign I'll likely use all three.
The Quest
How do the PCs become involved with the Brotherhood of True Flame? This adventure works best if you foreshadow confronting the Brotherhood...

Tuesday, 22nd September, 2015

Scrivener of Doom
@S'mon
Either of you run or use material from Lost Crown of Neverwinter in your campaigns? I do think it is possible an Arc that the group will explore is whether one of them is the true heir. I am thinking of biting the bullet on the paper adventure (maps!). Maybe I should just go the 'drivethrough' route instead and have a look?
I have to admit, for a two combat Railroad Station, "gates of neverdeath" actually looks pretty darn useful upon my read. If "Lost Crown" proved to be that useful, It may be worth picking up as my "main line" for the PCs to return to if the spurs they travel fizzle out.
I am pretty sure that This Neverember character will intrigue the team enough when they eventually meet him. (I hope the analogy works, but think "Arnold Shwarzenegger in his role as the Governator" Everyone seems to like him, but they are not sure why? And why is he so darn politically motivated, yet casually charismatic?) What is he up to? Is it all on him? Does somebody el...

Wednesday, 16th September, 2015

... I just want to make sure I understand the setting as published because I want to avoid contradictions if I have to research or explain something or choose to change something.
I think I know:
1385 DR: Mystra is killed by Cyric, at the behest of Shar. The weave collapses. Spellplague ensues.
1451 DR: Hotenow erupts leveling Neverwinter. (bad mages were trying to kill bunches of people to perform some ritual. fail.)
1461 DR: Settlers start to return to NeverWinter to rebuild but have a tough go at it until Lord Neverember decides to swoop in years later
1479 DR: 4e setting baselined, this is the year of my adventure.
My question is ... I have seen reference to Mystrra returning in or about 1480, and the effects of the spell plague diminishing. Is that true as it relates to 4e material, or is that a reboot for 5e? Or am I hallucinating? I am content either way but I'd like to know what the official andswer is as it is related to Mystara and her return in 4e.
Make sense?
@Scrivener of Doom , I am sure you can answer this.

Saturday, 29th August, 2015

Scrivener of Doom, care to explain the 4E solution/circumvention? Or is it just 4E's treatment of hit points as candy that can come from anywhere, even a healing surge, that makes recovering HP (or losing HP) a non-issue?
One solution to the meta-health problem: a cure spell can heal wounds or prevent future wounds. This gives unscathed characters a reason to seek curing. I think it works in-game as well, since if your previous damage didn't look like a wound, then your next orc-greataxe-clobbering doesn't have to look like a wound, either.

Saturday, 22nd August, 2015

aramis erak - With your group do you typically let your players go through books during the session? My group and I all agreed to keep the books available but not to actively look up rulings unless it was life/death circumstances. I do owe my players more comfortable chairs, but they have actually started bringing their own to leave at my place (which is also a win - saving money!)
Scrivener of Doom - Would you consider overhead fluorescent lighting to be acceptable (although not fitting for the setting, it does provide LOTS of light)?

Friday, 14th August, 2015

Talmek - I'm thrilled to hear about your family's 5E game! I've had many pleasant years gaming with my two sons (I started them out with AD&D 2nd Edition when they were 10 and 8; now they're 31 and 29!), and I wish you many happy years of gaming with your family.
Scrivener of Doom - Thanks for reading through the Story Hour, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. (And I agree with your "XP" selections - those were some of my favorite bits, too!)
Nytmare - It started out with my co-worker Dan, his son Jacob, and my son Logan. A few months later, we added Dan's wife, Vicki. And about 6 years later, we added Jacob's little brother, Joey. Other than a few "guest appearance" sessions with my eldest son, Stuart, when he was home from college, it's been just them for the entire campaign.
And thanks to everyone else for the congratulations. This has definitely been a highlight of my gaming career. And hopefully those of you with younger kids will get to DM for them when you feel the time is right.
Johnathan

Tuesday, 4th August, 2015

Scrivener of Doom A most excellent plan!
I'm printing it out and reading it tonight - I should have something concrete to contribute by Thursday (fixing the canoe rack tomorrow - might take an hour, might take the whole day : I'm not what you'd call "handy", as a general rule...)

Monday, 15th June, 2015

You could try [...] of a schema illustrates.
:confused: While I understood everything you said, I have NO clue how I would go about doing... well any of it. Was a time... was a time... (I was an engineer for a bit and did write code for a living, but that is just so far gone... so far...)
Kinoboy Scrivener of Doom
Also... with Masterplan there were some fairly complete files floating around the interwebs for a bit.
I found this little thing a while back - you might want to have a look : http://pifro.com/fax/4E/ddi/

Tuesday, 19th May, 2015

I'm not American so what you described simply makes me want to regurgitate the contents of my stomach while simultaneously voiding my bowels.
I will assume you otherwise meant it as a good thing. ;)
Oh, Scrivener of Doom ....... chocolate + peanut butter is nectar of the gods....... ;)

Monday, 18th May, 2015

It's funny you bring this up, @Scrivener of Doom.
I've been meaning to run a Savage Star Wars campaign for oh, maybe 4 years now and have never gotten around to it, so I don't have any direct experience with it.......
But everything else I've done with the system so far (classic fantasy, modern zombie apocalypse, near-future cyberpunk) leads me to believe that Savage Worlds would make a fantastic foundation for a Star Wars campaign.
In fact, if you're wanting more of an "Edge of the Empire" / Smuggler style game, Savage Worlds will be freaking brilliant right out of the gate.
There's really only two things I could foresee being a bit of work up front:
If you want to do lots of spaceship combat. You'll need to sit down and come up with specific vehicle stats for most of the common "stuff"---an X-wing, a landspeeder, a speederbike, a TIE fighter, a Corellian freighter, etc. I also don't have any idea the best way to do "dogfights" with Savage Worlds Deluxe. Would it work as a simple "chase" scene? For resources, check out the...

Friday, 10th April, 2015

I don't know 3E very well, but I've been running quite a bit of epic 4e recently. And my first thought was that 246 hit points is nothing.
Scrivener of Doom seems to have some reasonable ideas on how to toughen this thing up within the 3E framework.

Sunday, 22nd March, 2015

I quickly realised Tolkien was a terrible worldbuilderI don't disagree with any of your substantive comments - the timelines in Middle Earth are ridiculous when compared to timelines for comparable cultures in real life - but don't you think there is something a little odd about the quoted sentence? (A bit like Scrivener of Doom saying Gygax was a terrible game designer. It comes out oddly.)
What fantasy world has inspired more atlases, bestiaries, and emulators than Middle Earth? What fantasy world has been more spectacularly and convincingly visually realised (in pictures, and then in moving pictures by Peter Jackson)? It's unparalleled, and the fact that its economics don't make sense doesn't change that.
(On Minas Tirith's food - notionally there are farms in Lebennin and the rest of that coastal region south of the White Mountains.)

Thursday, 19th March, 2015

... and in many ways, 3.X. Combat powers are clear, but stunts (page 42), skill uses, skill challenges options, chances of success (Easy, Moderate, or Hard) are all GM-adjudicated, which is directly taking power away from players and putting it in the hands of the GM.
That is, if skill uses are clearly and completely spelled out, with many uses and DCs, the players can look at their bonuses, the DCs, and not only build characters in a concrete direction, ("if I get +X to Example Skill, then I'll be able to consistently do Example Action even if I roll a 1!"), but they also know their chances of success or failure without the GM coming up with whether or not it's even possible
<snip>
Am I missing something? Am I wrong? Maybe. And I'm open to finding out.It seems unlikely that you're wrong. I think you might be missing something - or maybe two things.
The first is that you might be missing certain experiences. Manbearcat's comments resonate with me very strongly, as they do for Scrivener of Doom - including the description of the table atmosphere that accompanies illusionist GMing. It's something I absolutely associated with 90s RPGing, and with White Wolf and 2nd ed AD&D both as systems, and player cultures built up around those systems. I can see it, too, in the 2nd ed AD&D PHB, which is full of examples of PCs failing (but the players still having fun), of statements subordinating the players' agency to the referee's judgment, etc.
If you don't have those experiences from that time then the comments may not speak to you.
I think the second thing that you might be missing - but maybe not, because perhaps it is in play in your brother's GMing that you describe - is what, for someone like Manbearcat (I think) or me (I know), is at the core of illusionist GMing. It is not GM ad hoc rulings around DCs or damage in the 4e style. It is GM manipulation of the fiction in order to force outcomes. If this is what someone cares about, then a system of rigid DCs (such as 3E) doesn...

First, let me say that I am using http://my-realms.blogspot.com/2014/12/starter-set-sandbox-15-leilon-and-night.html by Scrivener of Doom (how do you @ a user anyway?) as 95% of the inspiration for this campaign I am going to run. His blog is awesome, you should read it if you are running anything in the Forgotten Realms and for general insight anyway.
My adventure description (going to be running this on roll20, but still putting together the adventure itself) so far is :
The once sleepy mining town of Leilon (South of Neverwinter, south-west of Phandalin) served as a convenient resting place for travelers on the High Road. Now, the few travelers who still take this route shun Leilon, going miles out of their way to avoid even laying eyes on the town. The High Tower of Thalivar long stood as a landmark here, abandoned by a forgotten mage. For generations, the tower proved a tempting target for plunderers-and, too often, a grave for them as well. The people of Leilon knew that the tower held guardian monsters, and they were content to leave it alone. However, the Spellplague's twisted magic unleashed the creatures tra...

Wednesday, 20th February, 2019

The bigger news here is that TalksMachina is seemingly coming to YouTube.
I think they're all on YouTube already, they're just not listed.
https://critrole.com/filter/talks-machina/
This is a great move for CR, but it's probably going to be tough on G&S.

Monday, 2nd April, 2018

Yes.
If anything, RPGs more accurately use the term "race" than we do in real life.
(I'm known to fill in forms that ask for race with "human".)
Correct. By having all humanity be a single race, it is a denunciation of real-world racism, by showing that the differences some people put so much importance on are meaningless.

Tuesday, 6th March, 2018

I'm about to settle in and read this but I just want to make a comment first: Tyranny of Dragons doesn't belong in the Realms; it belongs in Eberron.
There's nothing that actually connects the story with the Realms, and WotC didn't make any effect to correct this. By contrast, this plot is very similar to the Tiamat-based plot outline provided in Eberron 3.5E's Dragons of Eberron. If you haven't already, read Dragons of Eberron and I think you'll find a lot of ideas about how to make these two adventures really sing in the world they were meant for.
Thanks for the advice! I'll have to check it out.
In the mean time I'm still working on the recap for Chapter 2. It was a very different kind of session; hardly any dice were rolled after they reached the camp, but it seemed like everyone was having a blast!
I'm curious to see how they handle the dungeon crawl in Chapter 3. It's not a style I often DM as so even my more experienced players might be thrown off a bit.

Monday, 19th February, 2018

That's the first time I've seen someone triggered in that way by such a common euphemism.
It is a common euphemism. That just shows how common axiomatic theism is in American speech. This is assuming facts which are not in evidence.
Also isn't "triggered" is more of an emotional response? This is much, much, much more about what I think than it is about what I feel.

Saturday, 17th February, 2018

He also co-wrote the very high fantasy double trilogy The War of Powers which I've read and re-read multiple times over the past 30+ years. It's begging for a big or small screen treatment.
OMG, he wrote that? I love that series, especially the "Enemy of my Enemy is still a civilisation destroying God and maybe we should not have teamed up with them" vibe.

Friday, 16th February, 2018

He also co-wrote the very high fantasy double trilogy The War of Powers which I've read and re-read multiple times over the past 30+ years. It's begging for a big or small screen treatment.
Yeah, The War of Powers is quite good. I'm a fan of a lot of late '70s/early '80s fantasy, before too much D&D influence crept into the genre and, more importantly, before it became so formulaic with way too many POV characters you need a briefing book to keep track of.
However, as the double scimitar fighting style of one of the major antagonists may have inspired Drizzle Douche'nozzle maybe I shouldn't hold these books in such high esteem.... ;)
Huh, didn't recall that but you're right about the two scims. Of course there are other sources of that, too, including Indiana Jones.
RIP Vic Milan.

Saturday, 20th January, 2018

pemerton, did you ever post a conclusion to this campaign? I don't recall one and I've also had no luck with Google. Anyway, would love to know how it concluded if you ever feel up to posting any sort of update.Hi Scrivener of Doom!
We're still partway through the Carceri episode. Because of our rule that we won't play this campaign unless we can get everyone there, we have'nt got in a session of it since the one I posted there, as one of our number has been renovating his house most weekends for the past year or so.
When we do play it again, and resolve it, I'll be sure to post.
Not to bang my own drum too much, but have you looked at my Cortex+ or Traveller actual play reports?

Monday, 8th January, 2018

Thanks. I've had that for a while - and share it around *a lot* - but I just don't have a guide for adding custom content.
i do it by a combination of copying out of the combined file and using the info in the way back machine.

Saturday, 6th January, 2018

Masterplan allows you to export to html and then you can copy and paste into a Word document.
There would be a feature I would like in Character Builder. I have been adding content into character builder and it becomes nicely useable but I would like then make it nicely presentable.
If another engine imported Part files that would be nice.

Friday, 5th January, 2018

Another alternative is to ditch Adventure Tools and use Masterplan. Unfortunately, that means exporting any of your custom monsters to monster files which can be some work. (Or does AT do that already? I haven't used it for such a long time.)
Masterplan is a surprisingly good monster builder and running encounters in Masterplan makes book-keeping during an encounter so much easier.
I used the Adventure Tool to do a Rich Text copy of the monsters which made it very easy to port 4th Edition monsters into a Word document and modify them. Without this capability it is much more tedious to convert 4th Edition monsters into my own 4.5 Edition game.

Tuesday, 12th December, 2017

In other words, they're the sort of choices you want beginning characters to make because they see the consequences of those choices and that, in D&D, one of those consequences can be a TPK.
No, absolutely not. The point is that they aren't choices at all. Two identical doors in a room one of which leads to certain death, when the party has no resources to know which door is right is not a choice. And you don't get to see "the consequences of your action" in that case even if you somehow live because there is no lesson to be learned here. A completely random choice leading to completely arbitrary death is not offering player's meaningful choices.
By contrast, Gygax's infamous Green Devil face is a choice. That door is gives you reason to have pause and consider your actions closely before attempting them. And it offers the prospect of scouting, such as using a 10' pole to try to observe the behavior that can inform your choice. It punishes you for going forward blindly, but it gives you...

Monday, 11th December, 2017

Justin Alexander (thealexandrian.net) makes a really good point about the Caves of Chaos with respect to new players: When you enter the valley with the caves, you're effectively presented with 12 choices (assuming you see all of the cave entrances). There are few adventures where you're so clearly presented with so many choices right at the very beginning and that's one of the reasons I continue salvaging it and using it in play.
I would argue that the majority of those are false choices. At least 3 of those choices - temple, bugbears, minotaur - lead to TPKs if the party is just 1st level with starting equipment, since they are basically designed with 2nd to 3rd level characters in mind. Even the hobgoblins and orcs are likely to to send starting characters tumbling back in confusion with high loses, and the gnolls certainly will. And one of those choices isn't actually apparent, because it isn't actually a visible entrance.
But more to the point, none of them are real choices because the pa...

Wednesday, 6th December, 2017

So, I'm running a 1e version of Keep on the Borderlands. I'm struggling with how to make the caves interesting. It's a module that splits the critics!
Gygax had great ideas but his execution sucked, probably because he was incapable of working with others - such as editors - in a collaborative fashion and because he was always rushing before a deadline.For another take that agrees with Scrivener of Doom, here's Mike Mearls's review of B2 on rpg.net. Here's an extract that conveys the general flavour:
The Keep on the Borderlands (KotB) literally serves as exhibit A in the great case against Dungeons and Dragons. Rife with crimes against logic, coherence and good roleplaying, a reviewer can only look at this product the same way that a traffic cop looks at a ten car pile-up: with an eye on how this happened and who's to blame.
But obviously some critics are big fans:
The old modules often play better than they read. Try running it. In fact try running it off the page with almost no prep (maybe an hour to read the introduction and skim the rest). Identify yourself as the game's referee, not the author of tonight's play experience (or even the emcee). Your job is to adjudicate the game fairly and consistently, not to make sure everyone has fun. It's the players' responsibility to have their characters survive and thrive. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.For a more elabo...

Wednesday, 13th September, 2017

It's arguably better than the first Bestiary and that was one of my favourite monster books of all time.
I agree - it's a toss-up as to which I think is actually better. Both of them are really good.
When I read the rakshasa entry I cannot help but think, "I really must run Eberron in 13th Age."
I've been thinking that since about the fifth session of 13A I ran. Unfortunately my players are insistent that THIS TIME we stick with the campaign until either a TPK or they hit the max level for the game, and so our next campaign won't start until I can get them up to level 10 (which, given that group can only play at most once a month, may not be for another 3 years...)

Friday, 7th July, 2017

I'll be blunt: Mongoose had a reputation for poor design and even worse editing. Is that the case with their Paranoia line?
I bought the infrared collectors edition. As neuronphaser states, the production values could be better. I didn't notice an issue with the cards, but then I sleeve them. The books felt very much like a print-on-demand book. I'm not sure how well they will hold up to lots of use. You can, of course, by the PDFs on DriveThroughRPG.
But the content is excellent. I really love the mechanics and the writing. It is hard to like the art as much as the original West End artwork from the 80s, because of nostalgia, but I think they manged to still keep the flavor distinctly Paranoia. I'll be running the included adventures with a group of friends next month and am really looking forward to it.

Thursday, 6th July, 2017

I'll be blunt: Mongoose had a reputation for poor design and even worse editing. Is that the case with their Paranoia line?
As an avid collector and GM of the game, I can say that the new edition is light years better in terms of production values and editing. I don't recall seeing a single grammar, spelling, or punctuation problem.
That said, it's not perfect. It's not exactly a Tier 1 game, so the production values, good as they are, still feel like a few corners were cut to keep things affordable. Specifically, the book bindings aren't the best, and the cards feel a little cheap. But it's all serviceable, nothing so bad as to render it difficult to use (or worse).
And the organization of some of the material is a bit rough due to the format of having 3 "core" books to reference (the Guide to Alpha Complex which is player-facing and in-world, the Player's Guide which is most of the rules and character generation and the GM's Guide which is the rest of the rules and options). Keeping in mind t...

Wednesday, 28th June, 2017

That doesn't make sense when you consider that Thayans are of the Mulan "race". And every other reference makes it plain that the Red Wizards were a faction within Mulhorand.
The only way to reconcile this is to suggest the Halruaans provided the catalyst for the rebellion against Mulhorand but they're not the founders and they're not the original Red Wizards.
I think the reference in Shining South was written by yet another TSR/WotC designer assigned to work on the setting with no actual background in FR or willingness to do basic research (see anything by R A Salvatore for more obvious examples of this phenomenon) because it doesn't match anything else written about the Red Wizards.
Also, there was a tendency in the 3E era for those without FR knowledge to ascribe everything to the Netherese.
"The renegades were driven from the region. The surviving renegades left to found the land of Thay, or so it is said in Halruaa." - Page 4 - The Shining South
My videos always come with a perspective from a ...